


Icarus, on Landing

by Cosmic



Category: SGA - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-21
Updated: 2007-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:38:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmic/pseuds/Cosmic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John remembers being four years old and thinking he could fly."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icarus, on Landing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/profile)[**barely_bean**](http://barely-bean.livejournal.com/) for the hand-holding. Even on Ferris wheels.

  
John remembers being four years old and thinking he could fly. Really fly. He used to jump off the top of the stairs and land at the bottom, obvious proof of his endeavors.

So he jumped off the roof of the car, the roof of the shed, the roof of the house...

It was never high enough to get him to lift off into the air and fly towards the sun.

It was enough to get himself a broken arm, and grounded for a month.

  


* * *

His dad was a pilot. For everything else he was, for every horrible thing John ended up hating about him, John always loved his dad for two things: for the good hair genes and for giving him a love of flying.

"Higher, dad, I wanna' go higher!"

His dad obliged, flying him in his arms, pushing him on the swings, and every time John tried to reach higher, hoping his hands got close enough touch the sun.

Dad even took him on a Ferris wheel, when he was nowhere near tall enough to be actually allowed to on it. His dad and him, on top of the world, almost reaching the sun yet always coming back to earth.

  


* * *

McKay would tell him he had the mythology backwards, that Icarus flew and flew and kept flying towards the sun until his wings melted, and he crashed to the ground, dead and broken. John does know that, he does; it's just that he can't imagine Atlantis being anything other than the sun. It's the brightest, most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

Atlantis is what John has been flying towards his whole life, and if it isn't his sun, it's the thing that keeps him tethered, keeps him from flying off and never coming back.

  


* * *

The city lights up at him in greeting, and John leans towards the balcony and basks in the morning sun, and he thanks his god for allowing him this, because he knows this is what Icarus wanted to reach, to touch.

This.

  



End file.
